D&D 5E WotC's Jeremy Crawford on D&D Races Going Forward

On Twitter, Jeremy Crawford discussed the treatment of orcs, Vistani, drow and others in D&D, and how WotC plans to treat the idea of 'race' in D&D going forward. In recent products (Eberron and Wildemount), the mandatory evil alignment was dropped from orcs, as was the Intelligence penalty.

@ThinkingDM Look at the treatment orcs received in Eberron and Exandria. Dropped the Intelligence debuff and the evil alignment, with a more acceptable narrative. It's a start, but there's a fair argument for gutting the entire race system.

The orcs of Eberron and Wildemount reflect where our hearts are and indicate where we’re heading.

@vorpaldicepress I hate to be "that guy", but what about Drow, Vistani, and the other troublesome races and cultures in Forgotten Realms (like the Gur, another Roma-inspired race)? Things don't change over night, but are these on the radar?

The drow, Vistani, and many other folk in the game are on our radar. The same spirit that motivated our portrayal of orcs in Eberron is animating our work on all these peoples.

@MileyMan1066 Good. These problems need to be addressed. The variant features UA could have a sequel that includes notes that could rectify some of the problems and help move 5e in a better direction.

Addressing these issues is vital to us. Eberron and Wildemount are the first of multiple books that will face these issues head on and will do so from multiple angles.

@mbriddell I'm happy to hear that you are taking a serious look at this. Do you feel that you can achieve this within the context of Forgotten Realms, given how establised that world's lore is, or would you need to establish a new setting to do this?

Thankfully, the core setting of D&D is the multiverse, with its multitude of worlds. We can tell so many different stories, with different perspectives, in each world. And when we return to a world like FR, stories can evolve. In short, even the older worlds can improve.

@SlyFlourish I could see gnolls being treated differently in other worlds, particularly when they’re a playable race. The idea that they’re spawned hyenas who fed on demon-touched rotten meat feels like they’re in a different class than drow, orcs, goblins and the like. Same with minotaurs.

Internally, we feel that the gnolls in the MM are mistyped. Given their story, they should be fiends, not humanoids. In contrast, the gnolls of Eberron are humanoids, a people with moral and cultural expansiveness.

@MikeyMan1066 I agree. Any creature with the Humanoid type should have the full capacity to be any alignmnet, i.e., they should have free will and souls. Gnolls... the way they are described, do not. Having them be minor demons would clear a lot of this up.

You just described our team's perspective exactly.

As a side-note, the term 'race' is starting to fall out of favor in tabletop RPGs (Pathfinder has "ancestry", and other games use terms like "heritage"); while he doesn't comment on that specifically, he doesn't use the word 'race' and instead refers to 'folks' and 'peoples'.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

I think you should take more time to think about this.

Dictionaries are powerful. Regimes, dictatorships and nefarious ideologies have always used words exactly to shape (i.e. break) the world to their liking. Fascist Italy even had a specific ministry for this.

Yes. Thank you for coming in my aid.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

If the core issue is "creatures that are always evil and exclusively create evil cultures is problematic", why are demons and devils fair game for destroying? Maybe if we just lay down our weapons and use our words we can reach a peaceful agreement with the wonderfully diverse immigrants from the Infinite Abyss.

 

[Minigiant]

Also honestly, wouldn't it be insulting to claim to orcs or whatever are somehow connected to PoC?

Especially when said PoCs don't even have cultures or lifestyles that represent or seem similar the kind of barbarian lifestyle orcs are often presented as having?

And looking back on it now, wouldn't half-elves and half-orcs be a better PoC representation because in many settings both are treated kind of shittily in-setting and often face predjudice?

There was a time when it was similiar. That might be another reason why WOTC is trying to disassociate and reinvent.

It would not be the first entertainment property of over 30 years in age to attempt to fix past depictions.

If the core issue is "creatures that are always evil and exclusively create evil cultures is problematic", why are demons and devils fair game for destroying? Maybe if we just lay down our weapons and use our words we can reach a peaceful agreement with the wonderfully diverse immigrants from the Infinite Abyss.

It's not them being always evil.
It's them being always evil and resembling real life people in any way.

 

[Gradine]

Ho! Look at these! They did not respond to our peace talk offerings. They slew our diplomats. They rape, torture and kill our people (and not necessarily in that order) and when they're finished, they animate our people into undead things to fight for them. They sacrifice their prisonners to their dark god (Iuz) and once the sacrificed are dead, they get transformed into undead too. They even animate their fallen soldiers into undead as to continue the fight against us.

But I sure that some of them are real good fellow deep down their heart so let's not take any chance and let them do their stuff. Surely they will finally see the light.

As you can see in this example, the LG society did try to reason with the orcs. They failed. Then they saw what the orcs and their dark god did and they acted accordingly. Not by letting the orcs continue as they wanted but by declaring a crusade against them and their dark gods.

Attacking without provocations is not LG. But once provoked, a response will be made. Only self delusional people would let such heinous acts continue. I never said that the eradication or a crusade against a race would not be provoked. The LG society will try to reason, but once that solution has been discarded, this society is left with only one conclusion and only one course of action. Letting your own people, old, young, men, women and children getting slaughtered is not a Lawful and Good thing to do.

The difference between a LG society (or person) falling into evil or not, is about when the said society (or person) will stop itself. At a certain point, the killing must stop. A LG will have to restrain itself at some point when the threath caused by the race/invader is over. Will they pursue? Will they let the evil ones go?

On the first invasion, the LG society will let the survivors go. Maybe on the second too, the third, fourth, fifth... But at some point, even a LG will have to admit that there is no hopes of reasoning with such brutes and they will start to apply the only possible solution. Heck, the people themselves will ask for such a move. Humans are able to do this to themselves and not even because of the extreme example I gave. Remember what happened in Rwanda or what americans did to the indians. If we can do this to ourselves, imagine what we can do to an entirely unrelated specie.

Don't get me wrong, I do not advocate such things IRL. This is a game. This is not reality. Orcs are not black people and have nothing to do with them. Just as Hobgoblins are not a substitute for whatever you want them to be related to. Evil humanoids are just that. Evil humanoids. Do not associate them with imagined real life counter part.

You're so very close to the point, which is that humanity has insisted other cultures/societies/races are evil savages who deserve to be wiped out to the last, throughout basically all of our history, up to and including present day. It's not that orcs are problematic because they stand in for one of these cultures. It's that the game itself rewards that specific mindset by creating cultures/races that are provably evil savages. It reproduces and reinforces a mindset that is incredibly dangerous in the real world. And one that is still way more prevalent that we'd like to believe.

It doesn't matter that orcs are ugly and green and elves and beautiful and pale. It matters that we can recognize that both of these creatures are human enough as to be functionality the same other than for gameplay purposes. The game tells you that living, breathing, thinking, human(enough) people are evil ugly savages who must be destroyed. That's beyond troubling even before we get to the part where the game then rewards you for engaging in genocide and treating it has morally righteous.

This doesn't mean that there can't be orc marauders and reavers who need to be put down (I mean we do this with human bandits and pirates etc too) because this is heroic fantasy and we deal with obvious problems with violence, but establishing in the game rules that every single member of this free-willed human-eqsue species is irredeemably evil and must be killed for goodness is a whole other step entirely, and WotC deciding to reconsider this is an awesome step in the right direction.

 

[Gradine]

If the core issue is "creatures that are always evil and exclusively create evil cultures is problematic", why are demons and devils fair game for destroying? Maybe if we just lay down our weapons and use our words we can reach a peaceful agreement with the wonderfully diverse immigrants from the Infinite Abyss.

Because demons and devils are immortal fiends and evil is key to their being (if they cease being evil they cease being fiends, generally speaking; the same is true for angels and archons on the other side). Orcs and goblins are humanoids with intelligence and free will and differ only from elves and humans only in that the game has declared them all irredeemably evil by fiat and rewards you morally and materially for slaughtering them regardless of their actions.

 

[Warren Ellis]

There was a time when it was similiar. That might be another reason why WOTC is trying to disassociate and reinvent.

Itwould not be the first entertainment property of over 30 years in age to attempt to fix past depictions.

Yes. What I'm wondering is this, past depictions probably were problematic (I wouldn't know since I was too young to get into the 1e or 2e versions of D&D) but in the current 5e era, does artwork or description really match that of PoCs, beyond having like gray or greenish skin?

It's like those people who say drow are too sexualized and then bring out old artwork from like 30 years ago. They never really seem to use modern, current stuff and I wonder why.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Kinda how like Jim Butcher (via Harry Dresden's perspective) describes thaumaturgy differences between demons and living creatures. I.e., People change. Their attitudes, positions, beliefs, all can shift and change, and therefore it's harder to make the magic work the longer the time period goes by. Demons on the other hand are forever. They never change their positions because they don't have and/or can't grasp the ideas of remorse, emotions, etc.

I always felt that a good description.

 

[Oofta]

Because demons and devils are immortal fiends and evil is key to their being (if they cease being evil they cease being fiends, generally speaking; the same is true for angels and archons on the other side). Orcs and goblins are humanoids with intelligence and free will and differ only from elves and humans only in that the game has declared them all irredeemably evil by fiat and rewards you morally and materially for slaughtering them regardless of their actions.

But that's just making it an in-game justification. There does not seem to be an out-of-game justification to me, or to others. Demons and devils are sentient beings. Several types of fiends can have offspring with humans.

If I had no knowledge of orcs and demons other than their entry in the MM I wouldn't know the difference.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes. By doing current depictions. What I'm wondering is this, past depictions probably were problematic (I wouldn't know since I was too young to get into the 1e or 2e versions of D&D) but in the current 5e era, does artwork or description really match thst of PoCs, beyond having like gray or greenish skin?

It's like those people who say drow are too sexualized and then bring out old artwork from like 30 years ago. They never really seem to use modern, current stuff and I wonder why.

5e artlork, lore, and foci are better.
It look like a strategy to openly highlight the differences of 5e from thoses of the past. That way if you look up the art and lor of the past and atempt to complain, WOTC can point right there to how they changed it. Or nip it in the bud, by shining a light on the new and let the old die in the dark.

It is one of many strategies one could use.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Nothing is ever that simple. Not all racism is willful, self-aware choice. A great deal of racism is committed and perpetuated via thoughtless habit. It still harms people. All WotC is doing is removing some of that thoughtlessness.

I don't want to negate the influence of subconscious in writing stories or creating worlds. If you want, you can see discrimination and racism in everything. We can analyze with tranquillity every written fiction and decide without problems to correct this and that if we sincerely find it offensive or lacking of taste. But there must be a limit of reasonableness, a minimum quota of objectivity. Otherwise we will be buried under the avalanche of inverse prejudice.
In the end we agree a lot (even if you prefer to not respond in topic to my arguments and cutted a lot of my answer to you), but it seems that you agree without reserve to the WoTC policy without asking to yourself where must be put a stop to this. I kindly remember you that the step to paranoia is short in this things. Dictatorial regimes can imprison you because you have sad something that THEY think is against the status quo. The whole "no racism adjusting" thing is getting sinister.